A Serenity/Firefly Mod

[SupaJames]

Well, I'm still new to the game, but I've already got the 'verse mapped out pretty well. Now I'm working on some components, and I'm wondering if anyone has a better idea on how I might do this than I do: I was hoping to implement a "crybaby," which is essentially a decoy that emitted a distress signal of the same kind as an attacking ship, with the intended effect of the attacker breaking off his attack to "rescue" the distressed ship. I was hoping there'd be some way to make your ship untargetable to the enemy (unless you fired upon them or something of that sort) or to send the enemy after the crybaby, which would be a satelite launched elsewhere in the system. Anyone have any thoughts on this, or want to lend their expertise to a Firefly mod?

[Hugh Manatee]

Well, I have 2 untextured Reaver Ships about 90% complete, you can have em when I'm done.

[bearclaw]

IIRC the only type of unit you can launch are mines and fighters. I would imagine that you could have a specialized fighter that would do the same thing. Only, to get anything to "rescue" it, they would have to actually target and fire on it. AFAIK, you can't do much of anything to affect friendly ships.

Although... it may be possible that if the 'crybaby' fighter had an illigal component on it that may do the trick for friendlies. Although it may also register as you carrying illigal cargo as well which would defeat the whole point... Worth testing though.

[Suicide Junkie]

If the object you launch has illegal cargo, but itself is not illegal, then you are OK to carry it on your ship.

Fighters are indeed quite handy as decoys; launch one, tell it to attack, and then run away while the enemies are distracted.
Such a strategy works far better in a mod like P&Nism, than th estock game, since fighters can actually survive for a while.

Also, note that you can launch just about anything you like if you have the appropriate mod.
You could for example, squeeze a whole carrier out of a launch bay. The Carrier would then proceed to launch its own fighters, and you could order the carrier to attack/retreat/etc

It would look quite silly, unless it were to be a space station or other huge object launching the ships, of course.

[Ed Kolis]

Squeeze a carrier out of a launch bay... hmm, that makes me think of some sort of sensor decoys http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[SupaJames]

Well, I'm testing my map of the 'Verse, and as I started the campaign, it gave me an "invalid index" error; any ideas on that? I'm using some randomly generated maps right now, the only things I've changed is copying another campaign's heder data to mine. The races don't match up with the systems, would that do it?

[Fyron]

Maybe the information in this thread (http://www.spaceempires.net/home/ftopict-948.html) will be of use.

[SupaJames]

Well, it's not any of those things, so I'll keep looking.

I got the Crybaby working pretty well. The illegal cargo isn't detected, but it fires a torpedo that gets their attention. There's still two things I can't quite figure out, though:

1) Is there any way to get weapons to do 0 damage and still fire? Some sort of unused damage type, perhaps?
2) I made a crybaby layout based on the human satelite with the SlotModder and saved it, everything looks good. But for some reason, whenever you launch it, it has the right layout, but there is no transmitter weapon. But, if you change the layout to the satelite, the crybaby components are attatched. Have I missed something that I needed to change?

[Suicide Junkie]

1 damage point is completely useless in a weapon. No need to be exactly zero unless I'm missing something.

Try checking the slot names, and make sure the appropriate types of slots are being used. Facings, weapon firing points, and slot name may all be important.
The easiest way to be sure it is good, is to load the satellite layout (since you know it works), then rearrange the existing slots to the shape you want, and finally save it under a new name.

[Hugh Manatee]

Is it possible to have a ship always trail "smoke", like in adition to engine glow?(you know where I'm going with this....see attachment)

[Suicide Junkie]

The smoke/steam/fire is based on % damage I believe.

[SupaJames]

Here's hoping, that looks pretty good, Hugh.

Well, the crybaby's working well, fuel's implemented and I just have to go through the map and polish some things. The current project is a "Full Burn," a temporary speed boost. I was planning on basing it off of Hok's Fuel system, unless anyone has any better ideas?

Oh yes, and does anyone know how "Component Picked Up By Player Ship" works? Does it test to see if a component was picked up from a random cargo crate, if it's just on board, what?

[ZeroAdunn]

On question: Firefly takes place in one system, are you going to keep that setup or change it?

[Hugh Manatee]

I suppose you could set up a network of warp points that each represent a planet in the system, do systems have to have stars in them? Or rather can they have a "star" in the middle that works like a planet that you can usually dock with(if its habitable) and the rest of the bodies in the system be moons? Then have the system in the middle of all the warp points contain a sun. This could establish trade routes, aliance teritory, reaver teritory, rim teritory, lawles zones ect.

[Suicide Junkie]

Indeed you can. In fact, the Starblazers mod uses such a system already.

It might be good to make a grid of systems, so you can travel to the empty sectors between planets for the transfer of illicit goods and other such sneaky things.

[Hugh Manatee]

and brave the reavers..... equipped with engine disrupters, crew killers and kamakazi fighters that ram(you can order them to ram right, I've never tried fighters)

[Captain Kwok]

You could make the arrangements of the systems (planets, empty space, asteroids) circular like a spiderweb, that would allow for a reasonable approximation of our solar system. Each system would be connected to systems that were adjacent in the same "ring" and have connections to the upper and lower "rings".